The newspaper reports that in analyzing Sunderland’s defeat to West Brom, Di Canio criticized his players (again), but Sunderland footballer Lee Cattermole (the midfielder Di Canio stripped of his captaincy) told Di Canio that the squad had lost faith in his controversial methods.

When details of the meeting emerged to Short, he decided that enough was enough and that Di Canio would be sacked. The proverbial “manager loses the dressing room” was the final death knell for the Italian.

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Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
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10 Comments

Understandable and not at all unexpected. Sunderland deserve to have a stable manager who can control his own emotions and actions if they want a stable and controlled club. Di Canio was fine to get them through the shaky end to last season but they require a more modern man-manager these days.

One thing I will say about Di Canio, to go over and face the fans face to face after the teams drubbing was, in a crazy way, a nice touch. To go over and face the heat from the fire was sad to watch and i feel bad for the fiery and flamboyant ex-coach. His players were long gone when they are the ones who should have been in his place. From an Arsenal fan, best of luck to Di Canio and the team.

I’m a little conflicted about his firing. But in the end , I understand.

I think what Di Canio brought to Sunderland was a breath of fresh air. In the beginning, he wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion on the players’ conduct at the club. He blasted their poor work ethics and brought to light what many managers are probably dealing with on that level.

And he didn’t really voice that opinion until the last day of the season (Tottenham last year).

But Di Canio’s failing is that he continued to use the media as a sounding board about his players AFTER he sold a bunch of players and brought in his own.

Whatever issues he was having with his new players, should have been addressed behind closed doors. You can’t keep bashing your current team and expect them to rally around you.

Also, if you keep running to the media with your team issues, it makes the public and the people you work for believe that you don’t have control of the situation. And if your boss is hearing that you don’t have control at work, you’re going to be fired.

My hope is that Di Canio will learn from this because I actually like everything he was trying do. He just needs to learn when and how to utilize the media.

But I’m also old enough to remember him as a player. He hasn’t changed much from his playing days. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t “self analyze” very much.

After reading the Telegraph article detailing some of what went on, I can’t say I have any sympathy for him. His fascist ideals seem to have been played out at Sunderland, even to the point of what happens in every fascist regime: the toppling of the leader.

While some of what he was attempting may have been “a breath of fresh air” his volatile methods of criticizing his players everywhere and never getting behind them was always going to end in ruins.